In this news segments for Houston’s KPRC-TV, broadcast on September 17, 1999, reporter Phil Archer covers the trial of Lawrence Russell Brewer. Brewer was the second defendant to face prosecution for the murder of James Byrd Jr. State District Judge Monte Lawlis moved the trial to Brazos County to ensure an unbiased jury. During his testimony, Brewer accounted for his association with a white supremacist prison gang known as the Confederate Knights of America. Contrary to forensic evidence, he also claimed that Shawn Allen Berry killed Byrd before the dragging took place.

In the early hours of June 7, 1998, James Byrd Jr. was walking home from a party in Jasper when three young men in a pick-up truck passed by and offered him a ride. The trio—Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and John William King—proceeded to assault Byrd and chain him to the back of the truck before dragging him by his ankles for three miles. Byrd died about halfway along the route. All three assailants were convicted of capital murder the following year. King and Brewer received the death penalty, Berry life imprisonment. According to Jasper County District Attorney Guy James Gray, a white man had never received the death sentence for the murder of a Black man in the state of Texas before. A horrific example of the violence still experienced by Black people in the United States, the case galvanized the passage of hate crime legislation on both a state and national level. Texas Governor Rick Perry signed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act in 2001. President Barack Obama enacted the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act eight years later. The measure updated federal law to include bias on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, remove prerequisites for race-related offenses, and provide federal funding for state and local investigations.

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